OktoberFIT Day 9: Morning Meditation

Nourishing your body isn’t all about exercise and diet. Sometimes we need to stop moving, and just sit in stillness. Meditation is a great way to relax the mind and body. Meditation allows you to make a deeper connection to your body and its many benefits include: increased self awareness, reduces stress, allows you to focus on the present, quiets the mind, lowers blood pressure, and can help you sleep better.

Meditation is easy, and can be done practically anywhere and at anytime.

You may want to sit on a yoga block or folded blanket to get the hips a little higher.

Sit up nice and tall, think about pushing your sit bones down into the earth and reaching the crown of the head up to the sky, lengthening out the spine.

Rest the hands comfortably on the knees, with palms up.

Close the eyes, and bring your attention within your body

Start to focus on your breath, noticing your inhalations and exhalations. Breathing in and out through the nose.

Spend some time focusing on the breath, and begin to deepen it. Bring the inhale all the way down into the stomach, feeling the stomach and the whole ribcage expand. On the exhale let all of the air out.

Spend a couple of minutes just sitting in silence, focusing on the breath.

As you sit in silence, let the mind be blank. Thoughts of your to do list, or what happened yesterday will pop up. The trick is not to attach to them. Imagine your mind is a clear blue sky. You start to notice clouds drifting by, but you just notice them, and let them to continue to float by. Let thoughts that come up in your meditation be like those clouds. Notice them, don’t’ attach to them, or spend time thinking about them; let them float by, and return your focus back to your breath.

Another helpful tool in keeping your mind quiet while meditating is mantras. Mantras are short positive phrases that you say over and over as you meditate. Think of some positive affirmations that you can say to yourself as you meditate. Think about how they make you feel, and why you chose them. But don’t think about it too much, just focus on breath as you repeat the mantras.

Spend a couple minutes every morning on meditation. Whole wellness means that you nourish your body, mind and soul as one. Bringing calmness into your life through meditation will begin to positively affect other areas of your day and life as well. Namaste!